So-called “high heels” on ladies' shoes generally have only a very small contact surface, hence they exert a correspondingly high pressure on the ground. Walking with such shoes therefore poses a problem on numerous surfaces. This is true of, for example, lawn, cobbled streets, gravel paths and surfaces with holes in the ground such as manhole covers, grating, timber boards, etc. The high pressure exerted means there is a risk not only of the wearer sinking into soft surfaces such as lawns, but also of said high pressure doing damage to numerous surfaces such as parquet floors, synthetic floors, etc.; as a result, access to such floors is often barred to wearers of high-heeled shoes, at least in public buildings.
There are numerous proposals for sleeve-shaped structures for attaching, or at least pushing onto, high-heeled ladies' shoes. Insofar as said structures are not purely decorative, the main concern is to protect the shoe heels when driving. Other proposals are aimed at providing the means of effecting an emergency repair to a damaged or broken high heel. The reader is referred to U.S. Pat. No. 3,035,357 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,694 with regard to the state of the art.